At an online conference on the disbursement of public investment capital from foreign loans in the period of January-September 2021, Truong Hung Long, Director of the Agency for Debt Management and External Finance of the Ministry of Finance, said that by October 6, 2021, the cumulative disbursement of public investment capital from foreign loans by ministries and state agencies reached only 19.03% of this year’s plan (VND 3,166 billion out of VND 16,637 billion of the allocated capital).

As of October 6, the Ministry of Finance had received documents from nine ministries requesting to return public investment capital totaling VND 8,054 billion, accounting for about 44.08% of the capital assigned by the government. Thus, the annual plan on capital disbursement may fail.

Hoang Hai, Deputy Director of the Agency for Debt Management and External Finance, told the conference that the total public investment capital from ODA and foreign concessional loans allocated to provinces and cities in early 2021 totals VND 63,709 billion.

Hanoi’s Vice Chairman Ha Minh Hai said that in 2021, Hanoi is assigned with seven ODA projects with a total capital of VND 7,800 billion. By September 30, Hanoi disbursed VND 1,361 billion, reaching 17.4%. Besides the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, site clearance is a frequent problem of the capital city in implementing ODA projects. Another problem is the increasing prices of construction materials. Hanoi has reported the situation to the Ministry of Planning and Investment and it wanted to reduce the disbursed capital amount by VND 4,500 billion.

According to Pham Thi Hong Ha, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Finance, the city is implementing eight public projects with a total capital of VND 121,214 billion, including VND12,550 billion of foreign capital. Projects funded by ODA loans and foreign concessional loans have disbursed VND 1,621 billion, accounting for 12.45% of the plan.

H. Duy

Task force to bump up project efficiency

The government’s establishment of a task force to resolve challenges revolving around the disbursement of registered capital for large-scale foreign-invested projects is expected to help problematic ventures push forward in implementation.

Government resolved to create new momentum for economic growth: PM

The Government is resolved to step up measures to create new momentum, and speed up the disbursement of public investments to spur economic growth in the last quarter of this year, PM Pham Minh Chinh said at a Cabinet meeting on October 2.